BIOCHEMISTRY: WEEK 11



During our class discussion on placebos, I immediately thought of the time my herbs teacher Teo Potts was lecturing about how he felt when people described acupuncture as a possible placebo treatment. I thought he would be offended upon hearing a comment like that but instead, he was supportive of placebos.  His perspective is that if a placebo results in a positive effect in healing person, then why not?  In order for people to be healed, they need to believe that it can be done.  A placebo can function as a spark to that belief and eventually even becoming the flame to the road of recovery.

Placebos can also help to strengthen the connection between the body and the brain.  The fact that they work tells us that there is a deeper level of healing beyond the effect of pharmaceutical drugs and standard treatments.  The context in which a placebo is given plays an important part in providing the ritual in which healing takes place.  The environment in which it is given, the person who is administering the placebo and the steps given during treatment create a ritualistic background for the patient.  Modernization  has virtually eliminated almost all of the rituals that gave meaning to human existence.  However, the secret to the sugar pill is that it charged with our need for ritual in order to believe in our own healing.





"Biochemisrty is a field of science concerned with the chemical substances and processes that occur in plants, animals and microorganisms."

Biochemistry explores the chemistry of living organisms and the molecular basis for the changes occurring in living cells.  It focuses on processes that occur at a molecular level in plants and animals.  Cellular components such as proteins, lipids and organelles are studied to determine how cells communicate with each other and the structure of a molecule is compared to it's function in order to understand how certain molecules interact.  Biochemistry studies the complex chemical reactions that occur in life forms








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